This invention relates to electrical connections in general and more particularly to an improved metal clip for making an electrically conducting fastening of a bare wire to a connector pin.
Connector pins which comprise a piece of sheet metal bent in a U-section with the free legs of the U-section also bent in U-shapes at their end to fit as a sleeve over a connector pin holding a wire in place between the base of the U and the connector pin are known. Such clips are commercially available and are used, for example, for the external wiring of plug connectors.
However, other methods of attaching wires to connector pins are also known. For example, connections can be made as solder connections, wire-wrap connections, and Faston connections in addition to the Termi point connection which uses the aforementioned clip. Thus, from both a technical and economic view point it is advantageous if an external wiring connector pin, preferrably having a cross-sectional area of 1 mm .times. 1 mm can be used for all these various types of connections.
For such a pin to be used in making good solder connections the connector pins must be coated with a tin film which is at least 5 .mu.m thick. However, with thicker coatings chip formation can occur when the metal clip is applied to make a Termi point connection. This can cause short circuits in the wiring panel. In order to avoid this danger connector pins used in Termi point clips are required to have a tin coat of 4 .mu.m thickness with a maximum tolerance of .+-. 2 .mu.m. Thus, a pin with a tin coating of between 5 and 6 .mu.m thickness is usable for both solder and Termi point connections. However, such a narrow tolerance range is difficult and uneconomical to obtain in large scale mass production, if it can be obtained at all.
Thus, the need for an improved metal clip of the type described above which does not form chips and which can thus be used with a connector pin which is also suited for other connecting techniques becomes evident.